Lacunae of Logistics

Riege Software International supports research project of Institut für Zeitgenossenschaft

MEERBUSCH, Germany — May 05, 2015 — Based in Düsseldorf, Germany, the Institut für Zeitgenossenschaft (institut for coevalship) – IFZ – is an independent, scientific and artistic institution selflessly committed to the detection and evaluation of socially relevant phenomena beyond commonly established social sciences. Thus, the institute’s latest research project is dedicated to The 100 Most important Things. What is important? And why? Which things are designated to enable life as we do experience it day by day? Which things in life are important, anyway? Above all: Are those things one stores at home really that important?

By publishing the book of The100 Most Important Things, the IFZ has created a serious scientific skit, presenting 100 photographs with 100 additional analytic copies of the last of the material sooths – surprising, convincing und easily to be understood even by laymen.

As an institution not only interested in things but to a great extent also in all the handling processes involved, the Institut für Zeitgenossenschaft has decided to explore the distances the most important things have to globally cover before they reach their final destination.

Therefore, the institut is highly interested in the lacunae of logistics, the few empty spaces – namely those six inches of unrealised shipping space inside a container.

In close cooperation with Riege Software International, the IFZ will ship The 100 Most important Things – 100 exhibits, framed, packed and wrapped separately, stored in the fractional lacunae of containers and shipped around the world. Employing the empty spaces as unconventional, invisible exhibition rooms, the institut wants to indicate the logic of logistics – including the enterprises and individuals involved in each and every logistics process.

The 100 Most important Things shall be recognised as the first worldwide travelling logistics exhibition. Though in step one, the exhibits will not be presented to a wider audience. The special effect of this undertaking will be the documentation of this event in terms of films and photographs taken during the entire supply chain. Our target is to make the invisible world of logistics visible to the rest of the world – thus enabling “access” to goods, freight, devices and things in order to provide a new understanding of logistics while creating a hype by inventive context and spectacular public activities.

About Institut für Zeitgenossenschaft

Founded 2011 in Dusseldorf, Germany, the IFZ is a consortium of artists, designers, scientists, authors and film-makers. In reference to Theodor W. Adorno’s Frankfurt School and Max Schemmler’s Dusseldorf Exigence, the IFZ pursues the question how to reorganize the gateways of bureaucracy, logistics and administration in modern societies.

In search of answers to this question, the Institut projects photo-optical installations, publishes books and essays and produces short films. The Institut regards itself as a creative spot for development and conceptual design of fresh, aesthetic ideas – whether on paper, in galleries, in containers or on screen.

About Riege Software International

Riege Software International is a leading provider of smart software solutions for the cargo industry. Established 1985, the family-owned company provides products and services to more than 300 customers worldwide. Riege employs over 80 staff at headquarters in Germany and branches in Europe, Asia and North America.